hi, im still having trouble looking for a joystick, to use with my ps3 for BoP, and PC for flight sim X, id appreciate your opinion and ill use this poll to help decide, if you vote other, please tell me which model you refer to.
many thanks, hopefully alot of people will find this useful

I just returned my AV8R-03. The analog hat was great but the deadzone was immense (enough to make me think that there was something wrong with it) and there is NO variable rudder control. I use my rudder alot and having it either be fully on or fully off is a deal breaker for me. The look of the AV8R is cool but it feels kind of lightweight.
I purchased a HOTAS X and I pray it performes better.

I just returned my AV8R-03. The analog hat was great but the deadzone was immense (enough to make me think that there was something wrong with it) and there is NO variable rudder control. I use my rudder alot and having it either be fully on or fully off is a deal breaker for me. The look of the AV8R is cool but it feels kind of lightweight.
I purchased a HOTAS X and I pray it performes better.

I bought the T-master a few months ago and played the original IL-2 on PC with it while I was waiting for the demo to release. On the PC, it worked like a dream, but when I tried to play the demo with it I was sorely disappointed. The hat switch only allows you to look to 3 and 9 o'clock so there is a huge blind spot at 6 o'clock as well as 3 and 9 o'clock high.

So, I went out and bought the AV8R-03 and tried it with the demo. The analog hat switch works alot better, but the rudder control is terrible. It is either all on or all off.

I will be playing with the AV8R-03 because the free-look function is the most important thing to me.

Both sticks suffer from a pretty big dead zone. I believe it is due to the programming of the game, because with the original IL-2 on the PC, there was no dead zone at all. This makes lining up a shot really difficult. After you have worked to get on the six of a bandit and just need to pitch the nose up just a little bit to pull lead, you will pull back on the stick a little and nothing happens, so you pull back a little more...still nothing. You pull back a little more and the nose violently pitches up and the moment is gone. It can be pretty frustrating at times. I hope they are able to do something about the dead zone in a future patch as well as the AV8R-03 rudder problem.

I bought the T-master a few months ago and played the original IL-2 on PC with it while I was waiting for the demo to release. On the PC, it worked like a dream, but when I tried to play the demo with it I was sorely disappointed. The hat switch only allows you to look to 3 and 9 o'clock so there is a huge blind spot at 6 o'clock as well as 3 and 9 o'clock high.

Can I ask how the T.Flight hat switch worked on the PC version? I can only imagine they will fix the console versions to work in the same way, considering the amount of people that find this to be an issue. I agree with the deadzone problem too, the joystick is more fun generally but I find it easier to be more precise with my aim, using the controller.

After you have worked to get on the six of a bandit and just need to pitch the nose up just a little bit to pull lead, you will pull back on the stick a little and nothing happens, so you pull back a little more...still nothing. You pull back a little more and the nose violently pitches up and the moment is gone. It can be pretty frustrating at times.

I feel your pain dude. I managed to get behind a FW-190 and missed out because I was struggling with the controls to line up a shot. I really hope they can fix this. I don't know why they would have deemed this acceptable considering these flight sticks are actually mentioned in the game's set up screen.